Showing cell text length while typing

[jmacleary]

Hello folks. I want to be able to see how many characters I am typing into a cell as I type. I know there are many ways to see the length after the data is entered, but I need to see the count 'in-flight' if possible.

 

[James006]

Hi,

To my knowledge, while in Edit mode ... you cannot have a counter displaying the number of characters being typed ...

 

[daverunt]

This doesn't fit your request but might be of interest....

https://www.excelforum.com/excel-programming-vba-macros/545848-text-counter-as-you-type.html

 

[jmacleary]

Hi Dave

I found that on google but my companies proxy restrictions dont allow me to view it.

 

[Fluff]

It's basically suggesting using a textbox, rather than typing into a cell.
You can then use a change event to count the number of characters & display it in a cell

 

[Jaafar Tribak]

I think using the PeekMessage API and watching for the keystrokes might work even while in edit mode.

Where do you want to see the resulting text length ?

 

[James006]

If Jaafar steps in ... be prepared for an extra-ordinary solution ...!!!

@ Jaafar ... could you get the keystroke counter to continuously update the cell's comment ... ??? :wink:

 

[jmacleary]

I think using the PeekMessage API and watching for the keystrokes might work even while in edit mode.

Where do you want to see the resulting text length ?

I would like to see it in the adjacent cell (so if typing into C7, I would want to see D7 continuously update.)

 

[Jaafar Tribak]

I would like to see it in the adjacent cell (so if typing into C7, I would want to see D7 continuously update.)

Sorry to disappoint you but after giving this a try it turned out to be more difficult than I initially thought.

Certainly, one can call PeekMessage inside a loop and increment the counter each time an Alphanumeric key is pressed but if the user decides to select a chunk of text inside the cell that is being edited and deletes the selected text then there is no way to maintain the coreect count.

I was also hoping to work around this by reading the whole text string using the UIAutomation libarary but that didn't work either.

You would just have to use an ActiveX Textbox for the time being as previously kindly suggested by daverunt and Fluff.

Regards.

 

[jmacleary]

OK Jaafar - thanks for your effort - I was pretty sure it would prove very difficult/impossible.